Syracuse Salt Potatoes

Since I moved to New York a year ago, I've gotten hooked on the local cuisine, especially Syracuse salt potatoes. This is a wonderful piece of food history that's easy to make and wonderfully delicious. For over a hundred years, the city of Syracuse, New York was the salt capital of the United States, and it supplied nearly all of our salt in the 19th century. At that time, there was a large population of Irish immigrants, and they invented a recipe for boiling potatoes in huge amounts of salt. And the amazing part is, it works! When I tried this, I was instantly hooked, and I'm glad to share this local food treasure with you, whether you live in New York or anywhere else.
I've made these potatoes a number of times already, and I'm not going to stop making them because they're addictive. And when you make potatoes like this, you may be hooked as well. So let's enjoy some potatoes, done the way they do things in New York. I love eating local, and this is a good example of why it's always a good idea to do so.
Pans needed: One large stock pot or dutch oven -- steel, alumin, or cast iron -- to boil the potatoes. These potatoes will be boiled uncovered.

Ingredients

  • 2 to 3 pounds small white or yellow potatoes (or "baby" potatoes)
  • 12 ounces salt (1 cup table salt or 1 and 1/4 cups kosher salt)
  • 3 to 4 quarts water
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter (or more)
Stores in the central New York area sell bags of potatoes especially for making salt potatoes, but if you don't live there you can make this dish using typical white, red or yellow potatoes. It's necessary to use small potatoes in this dish, because we're going to be boiling the potatoes without cutting them or puncturing the skin, and we want the potatoes to be thoroughly cooked inside and out.
Sort your potatoes and separate "small" potatoes from the really large ones. There's no exact size requirement, generally, the potatoes shouldn't be larger than two inches across. So-called baby potatoes will work great in this dish, though these are usually more expensive than normal sized potatoes.
Add about two to three pounds of potatoes into a pot for boiling. Don't cut the potatoes, and don't puncture the potato skins. Pour 12 ounces of salt over the potatoes, which comes to exactly one cup of table salt. It's okay to use the cheap salt if you want. If you're using kosher salt, use about 1 and 1/4 cups. Add all of this salt to the pot, then add enough water to cover the potatoes.
Don't cover the pot! Then we bring the potatoes to a boil, which will take between twenty to thirty minutes. Boil them for about twenty minutes. The salt water comes to a boil a lot faster than unsallted water, so this won't take long. Be sure to boil the potatoes uncovered, because we don't want them to burst open when they're boiling. If the potato skin is ruptured, the salt water will get into the potato and make it far too salty. That's why we simply boil them until they're done.
While the potatoes are boiling, melt at least half a cup of butter -- or a full cup, or more if you want -- to serve with the potatoes. This is a necessary step, as you will see when you eat them!
When the potatoes are done, drain them into a colander, then put them back into the pot and let them rest for about ten minutes. The residual heat will dry the potato skins, giving each potato a coating of salt.
Serve your salt potatoes on a plate, in a bowl, or however you want. You can pourt melted butter over the potatoes, or let your guests dip them in the butter. What we have are potatoes with a creamy inside, with a wonderful salty taste on the outside. When we add melted butter, this becomes a bite of pure potato bliss.

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